The poster is always identified at the end of the post. It's typically Rob, myself, or more usually than not our layout artist and webman extraordinaire Adam.

Spidey in a kilt?

Not quite out yet! We still have to wait a few more weeks So it is not "finally", anything can happen still..the Printer could get attacked by a horde of Zombies just as they are getting ready to send the books out..the trucks could be jacked by rabid shadowrun fans from Canada, or who knows what else.

I'm holding you personally responsible.

Then again, I'm one of those Canadians. So I'd just be getting it sooner than everyone else.

Really fun is what I'm in this for.

Running on memory here, since I'm away from my computer right now - and it's generally best to keep things vague when teasing anyway:

A couple...

Actually not sure... We'll be revisiting supermachineguns though.

Yup.

If by "aircars" you mean CP2020-style aerodynes, then no (in fact, I think you'll find we don't even have any "old" models). If you mean "personal transportation aerial vehicles", then yes (and I don't mean jetpacks).

Not sure what you mean by "new categories" since the existing categories are pretty far-reaching, ranging from micro-drones to full-blown drone vehicles. Of course, we will be including some jarhead bodies to the mix and those can potentially be rigged, so those might count.

No specific history or corps are highlighted - though most of the manatech devices identify the technologies provenance/producer. That and the mentions in Street Magic should be more than enough.

I want to underscore, yet again, that some of this stuff fans are already familiar with - just not under the label "manatech."

Without giving anything away: yes and yes.

I can tell you missing stuff...

The core rules still will see Street sams doing room clears with Sniper rifles instead of SMG's/Assault Rifles.

They have a chapter on Black and Grey Markets that introduces Zero rules. A table full of Heavy Pistols that all have the same stats and no reason to pick one over another. Hmmm..

Yeah, cause you're going to do much better in semi automatic fire than with narrow long bursts...

While availability of Black and Grey Markets will affect prices in certain campaigns and specific locations, we had no intention of reintroducing variable street prices as a feature. This chapter provides you with information on where, how and with whom shadow ops acquire their gear and the type of complications that might arise. Gamemasters are free to complicate this or play it as loose as they want.

Methinks someone hasn't read the descriptions of the weapons and went straight to the stat table. You get everything from a high-power revolver to a polymer builds to bypass MADs to the large bore heavy pistol, and the good old Savalette with its burst fire option - so, no, not all Heavy Pistols are created equal.

Depends what you mean by "new rigging rules". There are plenty of new drones, some rigger gear, customization shops et al., and loads of mods to be made to vehicles and drones. If on the other hand you want advanced rules/options and "rigging tricks" you'll have to wait for Unwired.

Did'nt convert well or just removed?

Who's lap was this dropped in?

You had me at ' Savalette''.

When you're going in with a Ranger Arms SM4 to clear rooms, one shot = one kill most times... and SA = 2 shots. Each shot having a higher base damage value and better AP to deal with armor. Yah... 2 shots = better than burst because bursts don't get to add to DV until after you check for armor penetration.

Some level of complication would have been nice... I find myself trying to port Street Index back to 4th ed because things are somewhat silly.... You want to buy a Frag Grenade... it's ¥35... you get to keep rolling every 12 hours... even though it may be 10F.

For the most part they are... To me heavy pistols would begin with the equivalent of a .357 magnum and scale up to similar to the Desert Eagle .50 cal. Each has different stopping power and various other stats... With the changes to the concealability rules for fourth ed, this is also somewhat lost... IMHO

Three guesses. The first two don't count.

Bull!

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FrankTrollman!

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Ancient History!

too much micromanagement . . only simulationists and such people will get anything out of it . . everybody else will get something like this:
GM:"you realize that the clip does not fit into your DE"
Player:"what? why?"
GM:"'cause you bought for a .50AE and yours is a .44 Magnum"

Street index, IMO, was just a way for the devs to make cool rules and then prevent them from ever being used by PCs. It's like "hey, we had nothing better to do than to make rules for mortars. Too bad those won't show up in your campagin because no PC will ever get them, and no GM want to end their campaign so badly that they mortar their players." SR3 is full of things like that where the availability is too high to hit in a sane universe where the laws of probability do not bend, and the street index is so high that reducing the availability would have pushed the cost way beyond what a Shadowrunner could reaslitically afford.

The great thing about SR4 is that they have, so far, refrained from wasting pages on things that the players cannot use. Even high availability, forbidden type things can be attained by a persistent PC, and it will not break the bank.

And have you ever considered that 35 yen might be the street price of a grenade, which is why there is no multiplier? We need to get beyond 2008 thinking when considering the availability of weapons in the 2070s. In the 2070s, the world is literally dominated by arms manufacturers. Illegal weapons are already cheaply available around the world, including in America. Think about what it will be like in 60 years if current trends continue? Arms manufacturers operate on supply and demand, and will pretend not to notice that much of the supply they fill magically disappears into an officially non-existent black market. Part of the theme in SR4 seems to be that weapons are not that hard to get, and aren't that expensive.

And does it benefit campaigns to go the other way? "Hey guess what guys, the tools of your trade are hard to come by, so let's slow down play while you go through shenanigans to get them." This isn't Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. It's Shadowrun. If you retain the old street index rules of SR3, you're telling samurais that while they have to scrounge and struggle to get the basic tools they need, mages can literally wave their hands and conjure power out of nothing. I'm not trying to ignite the magic/mundane balance argument again, but it seems only fair that we give sammies a little break, doesn't it?

Good news, it also comes in the form of a supository.